The

The The

The He swept the lantern in a wide semicircle, shadows moved and lurched.

Flickering light touched the stones underfoot and brushed against a long

procession of granite pillars that marched ahead, two by two, into the dark. Between the pillars,

the dead sat on their stone thrones against the walls, backs against the sepulchers to contain their

mortal remains. She is down at the end with Father and Brandon.

He led the way between the pillars, and Robert followed wordlessly, shivering in the subterranean chill.

It was always cold down here.

Their footsteps rang off the stones and echoed in the vault overhead as they walked among the dead of House Stark.

The lords of Winterfell watched them pass.

Their likenesses were carved into the stones that sealed the tombs. In long rows they sat, blind eyes staring out into eternal darkness,

while great stone direwolves curled round their feet. The shifting shadows made the stone figures

seem to stir as the living passed by. George R. Martin is a gardener, as we well know, he plants the seeds and sees what grows.

That dichotomy indicates there are seeds and sprouts, while the seeds represent his original

plants. Some of those seeds never actually sprouted, while others grew far larger, meaning

more important, than George originally intended for them.

The Crips of Winterfell was itself one of those seeds, and it's one that's particularly grown,

and it's become entangled with many other plot lines, while becoming even more mysterious all the while.

Furthermore, since he originally planned only three novels, the early chapters really

pack a punch with what he had in mind with the first elements of the series. So the

Crips were one of those, one of those original elements, one of those original seeds. And

...